Adam Hammond – Literature in the Digital Age: An Introduction
Chapter 8 “Literature in the Digital Master Medium”
In detailing “the unique expressive properties of the digital [master] medium’ (175) Hammond begins with a historical review of how electronic literature evolved. He is essentially creating not only a theoretical field, but also a canon for this new form.
Main questions to be addressed:
How is the digital age forcing us to reconsider our notions of literature and the literary (177)
How are multimodal forms forcing us to reevaluate literature and the literary?
What happens to the traditional literary modality, text, when it is incorporated into one of Hayles's second generation born-digital texts?
Is it really possible to integrate a form like literature — a form that usually requires slow, careful, close reading — into a noisy, colorful, flickering space combining music and moving images, or do such environments overwhelm the literary experience?
If we accept McLuhan's basic premise that the medium affects the user more profoundly than the message it carries, how might multimodal literary forms reshape the consciousnesses of their readers?
Hammond discusses Inanimate Alice by Kate Pullinger and Chris Joseph, Dakota by Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries as exemplifiers of serious works by serious artists – but also prompts us to ask the “uncomfortable question” - are video games art and/or literature, “something along the lines of a universal language” (187).
Hammond makes clear the youthfulness of the digital literature genre by questioning our terms - are we reading, playing, or viewing these works? (180)
These works, Hammond argues, were meant "to turn the question back on the reader." (181) He wonders if the multimodal aspects of these works are doing this, or if these aspects are simply distracting to the reader. He also wonders if we are the "antiquated devices" that are clashing with the new medium.
We have also been talking a lot about reader agency. However, our encounters with printed text don't offer us agency, so is that what we are really looking for when we critique digital literature, or are we actually concerned with our ability to close-read these texts?
The debate of interactivity vs. narration: The player of the game is not like the reader of a text, and the issue of time (Jasper Juul) + the issue of a ‘second life’ ideal (Austin Grossman)
Nevertheless games need to be talked about in narrative terms in order to “evaluate their suitability as a carrier of the literary impulse into the digital future” (190).
The role of indie games, Gone Home and Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP for example.
Proposing a "balance between narrative and non-narrative elements." (194, emphasis original) Hammond is proposing that video games offer a balance between our left-brain and our right-brain activity.
So why is it imperative to pay attention to this still new, malleable form?
Adam Hammond – Literature in the Digital Age: An Introduction
Chapter 8 “Literature in the Digital Master Medium”
If we accept McLuhan's basic premise that the medium affects the user more profoundly than the message it carries, how might multimodal literary forms reshape the consciousnesses of their readers?
So why is it imperative to pay attention to this still new, malleable form?